TRAN: Do not allow AI to replace human writing
Column: Hung Up
Writing is a ubiquitous skill — one used in everyday life and in almost every profession. But with modern technology, it can seem like a dated, unnecessary and time-consuming practice.
After all, artificial intelligence services and large language models can generate complete essays in mere seconds that answer virtually any task given to them. A human, on the other hand, may take hours to come close to a similar result.
The machine's logic is usually adequate, or close enough at least, meaning that a user can manually revise to finish the end product. Technical knowledge in terms of detail and accuracy may still be lacking, but every aspect of these technologies is constantly improving.
They may not be able to completely replace human writing yet, but it is not unreasonable to think that this future is arriving sooner rather than later.
On the more technical side of writing, many technologies have existed for years and also seemingly lessened the need for practicing writing.
Spell and grammar checks are automatically enabled in the most common word processors, such as Google Docs and Microsoft Word. These tools are largely reliable now, and the suggestions they offer often point out mistakes and offer simple solutions to fix them.
Again, these tools are not perfect. Microsoft Word, for instance, occasionally recommends a suggestion, then recommends a complete reversal of the change and continues this loop endlessly. But catching most of the mistakes, especially the most obvious ones, may be enough for the vast majority of tasks.
Other software like Grammarly can do the same spell and grammar checks, perhaps with more accuracy and also with additional recommendations, such as to improve clarity and switch from the passive to the active voice.
So, even without AI software writing for the user, it may seem like humans can simply sketch out very quick rough drafts and rely on some of these tools to fix the end result.
To a certain extent, it is true that technology will replace human writers, as it eventually will for nearly any and every task or job.
This would come with plenty of benefits: For instance, AI could be able to publish one's results quickly, removing the need for humans to do so, and also quickly create summaries of thousands of other people's work.
Research processes, which may be some of the most time-consuming efforts, could be shrunken from numerous hours or days to a few minutes.
But there would still be a need for human writing. On a (perhaps) superficial level, it would be less meaningful to only read works written by artificial intelligence.
To rely solely on artificial intelligence for writing would mean a lack of human writing to read, and one can predict that less reading would be done overall.
It is suffice to say, that less reading would mean a less knowledgeable human race, which is the opposite of what technology is meant to accomplish. And while technology may be able to vary its style from piece to piece, human writing reflects human speech and thinking processes.
To be able to completely overtake humans in writing would mean to be able to perform the same humanistic speaking and thinking patterns. This may not be possible in nearly the same time frame as the development of the artificial intelligence models.
On a more individual level, writing is necessary for developing proper and more coherent thinking processes.
Humans most effectively express themselves through their emotions and words, either spoken or written. Without writing, our thoughts float aimlessly through our minds.
These thoughts are more random than truly connected and need to be acted on in order to form developed and rational ideas. Writing is the most straightforward outlet to do so, with thoughts capable of being arranged in any order, even if they were dreamed of years before being written into existence.
In the same way, practicing writing improves one's thinking processes.
Just relying on the computer to generate ideas would mean a replacement of critical analysis and a deterioration of human creativity. AI models' attention to detail and thought processing help improve users' mental clarity and critical thinking ability. But that does not mean AI should be used as a replacement for a user's original work.
Even if machines can "create" in the same sense as humans, completely allowing them to do so would mean removing a key part of humanity's uniqueness.
Currently, many of these technologies, from ChatGPT to Grammarly, are used as a complement to human work, such as by generating ideas or providing assistance in the revision process.
But, when it is inevitably able to do so in the future, we should be wary of allowing it to completely replace human work.
Tyler Tran is a sophomore in the School of Arts and Sciences majoring in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and minoring in Economics. His column, "Hung Up," runs on alternative Mondays.
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